According to Tovah Paglaro, the David Suzuki Foundation’s Queen of Green, consumers can start by looking for two things: parfum or fragrance, and triclosan. While parfum/fragrance isn’t the worst offender on its “Dirty Dozen” list, its presence in a product usually means there will be other suspect ingredients.

Castile soap is a good alternative that can be used as soap, shampoo, for household cleaning, laundry detergent, even as toothpaste. Or there are many recipes online if you want to try making your own personal care products.

Part one: Toxic beauty products:

A Toronto woman has launched an app to make it easier for consumers to rate their cosmetics and beauty products. ThinkDirty lets you scan a product barcode to get information on the product, its ingredients, cleaner options and an overall score. This information and score is produced by consolidating independent research from multiple resources, such as government lists of prohibited chemicals, peer-reviewed journals, non-profit health organizations’ reports, and regulatory agencies’ guidelines. The ThinkDirty app is free right now on iTunes.